Imagine that you are a colonial person. Choose the
region you are from. Give yourself a name, an age, and an occupation.
Make sure that this information is included in your homework.

As that colonial person, answer this question in a short
paragraph.

WHICH IS THE WORST CRIME (besides slavery), AND WHY?

Think about which one would really get your attention, and
maybe persuade you to support independence.

FROM THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

TRANSLATION

1. He has
refuted his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public
good.

1. He has refused
to enact laws that would be good and useful to the public.

2. He has
forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance,
unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and
when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

2. He won’t allow
his governors to pass important laws, because he wants to approve everything
personally, but then he forgets about the whole thing. Important laws are
never passed.

3. He has
refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of
people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in
the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

3. He has refused
to pass laws that would benefit many people, unless those people will give
up their right to representation in government. This right is sacred to the
people, and only frightens dictators.

4. He has
called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and
distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of
fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

4. He has called
meetings of lawmakers in remote areas, for no reason other than to make them
so tired that they will agree with anything he says.

5. He has
dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness
his invasions on the rights of the people.

5. He has
continually forbidden our colonial legislatures to meet, only because they
bravely objected to violations of the peoples’ rights.

6. He has
endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose
obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass
others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of
new Appropriations of Lands.

6. He has tried to
prevent people from immigrating to this country by deliberately creating
laws to make it difficult.

7. He has
made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and
the amount and payment of their salaries.

7. He has made our
judges his puppets. They are totally dependent on him for their jobs and
salaries.

8. He has
erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to
harass our people and eat out their substance.

8. He has appointed
many new officials who come over here and harass our people and use up our
resources.

9. He has
kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our
legislatures.

9. He keeps
soldiers over here, in peacetime, without the permission of our governments.

10. For
quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

10. He commands
that these armed soldiers live in our houses.

11. For
protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they
should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

11. He protects
these soldiers from punishment. They can murder one of us and get away with
it.

12. For
cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

12. He has
prevented us from trading with other nations, cutting us off from everyone

13. For
imposing Taxes on us without our Consent

13. He has taxed us
without asking us first

14. For
depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

14. He has
prevented us from getting fair trials in many states

15. For
transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

15. He has forced
people to go to England for trials. Very often they have been falsely
accused of crimes.

16. He has
abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging
War against us.

16. He has decided
that he is not responsible for protecting us anymore, and has attacked us.

17. He has stolen
the resources from our seas, attacked our coasts, burnt our towns and
destroyed the lives of our people.

18. He is at
this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the
works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of
Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and
totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

18. Right now he is
bringing armies of foreign mercenaries to finish his campaign of
destruction. His actions are barbaric, and totally unworthy of a king.

19. He has
constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms
against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and
Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

19. He has
kidnapped Americans and forced them to serve in the British navy. These men
are forced to kill their own friends and family, or be killed themselves.

20. He has
excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on
the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known
rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and
conditions.

20. He has tried to
turn us against each other, and tried to get the Indians to attack us.
Indians, as we all know, are merciless. They will kill anyone, even the
elderly, women, children and the injured.

THE
CONTINENTAL CONGRESS DELETED THIS PART.
22. He has waged cruel War against human Nature itself, violating its most
Sacred Rights of Life and Liberty in the Persons of a distant People who
never offended him, captivating and carrying Them into Slavery in another
Hemisphere, or to incur miserable Death in their Transportation thither.
This piratical Warfare, the opprobrium of Infidel Powers, is the Warfare of
the Christian King of Great Britain.

THE CONTINENTAL
CONGRESS DELETED THIS PART.

22. He has cruelly ignored peoples’ basic rights to life and liberty by
enslaving foreign people who never did anything to him. These people are
captured and transported half way around the world. They will die miserable
deaths, either as slaves or on the voyage here. The King of England does
this piracy, this shameful practice of barbarians.

23. In every
stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble
terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A
Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a
Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

23. Every time we
are abused we have written to the King, asking politely for the abuse to
stop. Every time we ask, our answer is more abuse. Any King who acts like
this is a dictator, and has no right to be the leader of free people

24. Nor have
We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them
from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an
unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the
circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to
their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties
of our common kindred, to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably
interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the
voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the
necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the
rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

24. We’ve also
tried asking Parliament for help. We’ve reminded them that we are
Englishmen, too. We’ve asked them to end these abuses, to treat us with
justice and mercy. We’ve asked them to reject the King’s actions. But, like
the King, they have ignored us. Therefore, we have no choice but to consider
Parliament our enemy as well.